Bartered Things

When, for others, like has become

Simply not enough,

And days stretch over

Mounds of malcontent;

When the unmistakable sound,

Of worn lovers’ labored breath,

Can be heard over miles

Of cherished tensions set

Amid ordinary lives,

That have run their laden path;

A course burdened but commenced,

With star-gazed dreams and,

Grand intent.

My life.

When for the world, adore seems but a word,

What’s magic has cruelly been abridged,

To the parlor trickery of a fleeting fire,

A glow that flickers and dies,

Like a candle flame in a sudden storm;

When smiles once competently bright,

As to flood romantic dusks with blinding light,

Are feigned to pass the vital time,

Stolen to traverse once golden, now jaded

hills of yet-unmet goals,

My soul.

And when prosaic lovers

Embrace nothing more than

the drudgery of their orderly roles

And it weighs upon their things mundanely done,

In the attainment of their somber days;

When their newness passes and

Their old ways near,

To paint less vibrant rays,

Once full hearts, settling to empty chambers

That promise yet more of the same,

My forever.